> They still needed Telco support and Telco's have adopted the technology […]
My Telco, the largest national mobile carrier, still does not support RCS in 2025, which makes RCS and which mobile platform supports it and which does not a moot point for me.
Telcos do not have an incentive to upgrade the messaging infrastructure alone unless the upgrade comes as part of the core network upgrade, which is usually bound to the number increase in <whatever>G. Since the introduction of 4G, when mobile networks turned into dumb data pipes for everything, including voice, there is very little money to be made in the telco business. ISP's have suffered the same fate.
Yes Apple provided an improved messaging service before there was one via iMessage, however they have failed in allowing their service to integrate with the rest of the industry that is looking to support an improved open standard that would allow for a better experience between different mobile operating systems.
The original point you commented on was about Apple not integrating with other platforms.
As I said, I'm an Apple guy but Apple should've implemented RCS as soon as the telco's supported it.